{"id":141463,"date":"2025-08-13T04:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141463\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T04:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T04:26:12","slug":"chances-of-a-nascar-playoff-shakeup-history-says-50-50-at-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/141463\/","title":{"rendered":"Chances of a NASCAR Playoff Shakeup? History Says 50-50 at Best"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASCAR\u2019s past, and its many ghosts, is often a way for fans to connect \u2014 with each other and with their own past. <\/p>\n

Sometimes, nostalgia is a reason to watch, to share the sport with someone else. It\u2019s about people and stories and memories.<\/p>\n

But a closer look at history also gives a window into the present \u2026 and sometimes the view is the beach side, and sometimes it just overlooks the dumpster.<\/p>\n

There has been a recent upswell among fans for changing, if not scrapping altogether, the current playoff system. The arguments are sound: the current system and its emphasis on an entire season riding on three-race elimination rounds and a one-race title makes today\u2019s title, through absolutely no fault of the drivers who win it, look less than what their predecessors won.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Happy Hour: Tommy Joe Martins Rants Road Course Travel, Playoff System & SVG Fatigue<\/p>\n

Maybe the eliminations are exciting, at least in the moment, but it\u2019s unfortunate when a driver who was clearly the class of the field doesn\u2019t even make the final cut because of one or two poorly-timed misfortunes. It\u2019s equally disappointing when a driver whose season was good but not great is rewarded with the title over one who was great.<\/p>\n

NASCAR points to the excitement leading up to the playoffs and the idea that anyone can make it in at the 11th hour as something to spice up the dog days of summer. With just two races left to decide this year\u2019s field, especially with one of them being at Daytona International Speedway \u2014 where survival trumps skill too much of the time \u2014 there is a chance for another driver or two to sneak in via a win either Saturday night, Aug. 16, at Richmond Raceway or next weekend at Daytona.<\/p>\n

NASCAR would like fans to believe that the last couple of weeks in the regular season are akin to the Wild West, where chaos will reign and a dark horse will burst onto the scene to claim a last-minute playoff berth. It\u2019s played up like it happens every year.<\/p>\n

But does it? Is it statistically likely that somebody outside of the current 16 playoff contenders will steal a spot away?<\/p>\n

The answer is no.<\/p>\n

History tells us that it\u2019s a possibility, but it\u2019s just as likely\u00a0not\u00a0to happen. In the 11 seasons under the current playoff format, the 16-driver field has changed in the last two weeks five times. In the other six years, the field after race No. 24 was the field after race No. 26.<\/p>\n

But wait \u2014 NASCAR has run the final race of the regular season at Daytona since 2020. Surely that upped the odds of a last-minute winner. Percentage-wise, it did, but only slightly. In five years, three new winners have appeared at Daytona, including 2024, when it was the second-to-last regular-season contest.<\/p>\n

2024 is the only year in which two playoff spots changed hands in the final two weeks with new winners in both races (Harrison Burton<\/a> won at Daytona and Chase Briscoe<\/a> won the finale at Darlington Raceway). There is a small twist on last year\u2019s final two weeks in that Austin Dillon<\/a> won at Richmond but was removed from the playoffs for intentionally wrecking two drivers to get to victory lane. In reality, all Dillon\u2019s ineligibility did was prolong one driver\u2019s playoff hopes, but it did create a third change to the contenders with two races left if you want to look at it that way.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a rundown of when and how spots changed hands in the final two weeks of the regular season.<\/p>\n

2014<\/p>\n

Kasey Kahne<\/a> won the second-to-last race of the regular season at Atlanta Motor Speedway to earn a spot. Clint Bowyer<\/a>, without a win on the year, fell out of the running based on points. Matt Kenseth<\/a>, Greg Biffle<\/a> and Ryan Newman<\/a> got in on points despite not having wins.<\/p>\n

2019<\/p>\n

Bowyer outpoints Daniel Suarez<\/a> in the last two weeks to claim the final spot.<\/p>\n

2020<\/p>\n

William Byron<\/a> won the finale at Daytona after avoiding (or triggering, tomato, tomahto \u2026) a multicar crash in the final laps. He ousted Jimmie Johnson<\/a> in Johnson\u2019s final season as a full-time driver.<\/p>\n

2022<\/p>\n

Dillon laid a bumper to Austin Cindric<\/a> for a last-chance win at Daytona. NASCAR didn\u2019t find the move as egregious as his 2024 Richmond effort, so he squeaked in under the wire. He didn\u2019t technically bump anyone, as an injury forced Kurt Busch<\/a> to withdraw from the playoffs. So Busch was the driver whose spot Dillon took over. Had Dillon not won, Martin Truex Jr.<\/a> would have taken the final spot on points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Waid\u2019s World: In 1988, The First Race on The \u2018New\u2019 Richmond Ended Years of Slow Decline<\/p>\n

2024<\/p>\n

For the first time, two new winners in the last two races changed the picture. With Burton\u2019s victory at Daytona and Briscoe\u2019s in the finale, Chris Buescher<\/a> and Bubba Wallace<\/a> saw their playoff hopes slip away in the final weeks.<\/p>\n

Like everything else, there are two sides to the story. NASCAR is right that someone can pull off a win in the next two races that changes everything for both himself and the driver he replaces. If that happens, fans will remember it in the coming years for what it was: a moment of drama that changed things up. There\u2019s anticipation that something big could happen, and that\u2019s real.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t mistake the possibility for a foregone conclusion that the field will be different in two weeks than it is right now. Historically, there\u2019s about a 50-50 chance. The past tells us that there\u2019s probably as much hype as substance to the buildup.<\/p>\n

Either way, someone\u2019s favorite driver will run for a title, at least for a little while, and someone else\u2019s will watch from the outside. That\u2019s always been the way, really, even under a full-season format.\u00a0<\/p>\n

History sometimes reminds us of the past, good and bad. But it can also bring out the truth about the present, pleasant or not. Either way, it\u2019s worth the time for a comparison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Donate<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy\u2019s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace\u2019s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com’s Around the Track page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASCAR\u2019s past, and its many ghosts, is often a way for fans to connect \u2014 with each other…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-141463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115019565232996974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}